God Deserves Glory

I read an interesting verse this morning during my devotions and I thought I would share it and my response.  It goes so well with the quote of the week that I couldn't keep it to myself!  I also can't help thinking it will minister to someone else rather than me, for we all have difficult times and seasons.

Leviticus 14:34 reads, "When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and I put the leprous plague in a house in the land of your possession..."

Notice who places the plague in the house:  God does!  This is a shocking revelation to people who think the devil is to blame for all the "bad" we experience and God is to thank for all good.  God is able to take something which appears bad and use it for good.  God tested His people in the wilderness with traveling and hardship, to see if they would walk in His ways or not.  God allowed Satan to take Job's wealth and health.  Job said to his wife who tempted him to forsake God, "Should we receive good from God and not evil?"  God at times would allow leprosy in a house to see if people would obey His law. so He would be glorified.  When the disciples of Jesus saw a blind man they said, "Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?"  Jesus said neither, but this happened so God might be glorified.  It is the heathen who are convinced "karma" exists, a perversion of the Golden Rule.  When Paul, thought to be a criminal by the natives of Malta was bitten by a viper, they said in their hearts, "He has escaped the sea but justice will not allow him to live."  When he didn't swell up and die, they figured instead he was a god.  Wrong on both accounts!  He was no criminal, and he was a man who served the Living God.  His life was spared for God's glory, even as Paul was imprisoned for the glory of God according to His Word, having said in Acts 27:22:  "And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship."  This theme is woven throughout scripture:  God gives and takes away for His glory and the testing of our hearts.  Trials make us better and increase our faith in God.  A man who walks in faith brings God greater glory.